Neal Schon – Journey

There’s been a question that fans of the San Francisco based rock group Journey have been asking for over a decade. “Why don’t the original members reunite for a tour? After all, Journey’s music is some of the most played material on radio.

Their “Greatest Hits” disc continues to sell in record numbers year after year. A little over a year and a half ago, they regrouped for a recording project, then disappeared.

Three years ago, Journey lead singer Steve Perry, released a solo project and toured, performing in front of capacity crowds across the country. Then as quickly as he appeared on the international rock scene, Perry vanished. So, when Journey guitarist and founding member Neal Schon called, the most logical question was once again, “Why don’t the original members of Journey, including Perry, reunite and tour?” “That’s a good question,” Schon said,” The only reason we got into the studio and did the record with Steve Perry a year and a half ago, was that I wanted to get out on the road again with Journey and tour. We had not been out on tour together for a long time. So, it came down to this. We put out our last record with Perry and there was some pretty good success with the record considering that we did nothing to promote it. Then we wanted to go play. All of a sudden, Steve had some physical problems with his hip and he required therapy for a year and a half. After that time he still was having problems with his hip and Steve didn’t really think he could perform or endure a tour.”

Perry and Schon are the two individuals who founded Journey back in 1973.

Since Perry is the group’s original singer and his voice, along with Shon’s guitar work, makes up the definitive Journey sound, the stakes were high when Schon decided to call for a business meeting with Perry.  If Perry were to decide against granting permission for the Journey band name to be used without him being in the lineup, a long and lengthy court battle, one which could easily take years and run up legal expenses into the millions of dollars could possibly ensue.

Schon and his band mates realized this fact when the sat down with Perry earlier this year. “We had a meeting,” Schon said,” and we said, ‘Look, we really want to go on here. It’s been a year and a half and nothing seems to be getting better. It’s a weird thing to try and do. Anytime you try and replace a lead singer, you go out and take your chances. If this doesn’t work, then we’ll go back to the drawing board. Would you let us use the name and continue touring as Journey? I mean after all, you’ve got nothing to loose here. Because there has been nothing happening for twelve years except for that one record. Now we’ve got to move on.’ So Steve said ‘OK’ and he gave us permission to tour as Journey. We wished Steve the best and he wished us the best and that’s how we left it. We didn’t have to go through a huge court case like Pink Floyd did, so we were really lucky.” According to Schon, the search for a new lead singer was not a difficult one. When he first heard vocalist Steve Augeri five years ago, Augeri was singing with a rock group called Tall Stories. Schon was amazed at the similarities between Augeri and Steve Perry’s vocals and he made a note to have Augeri’s name as a reference point if he ever needed another lead singer once Perry decided what he wanted to do. “A song came on the radio,” Schon said,” when I was driving around LA with a friend of mine and I said, ‘Does this band sound like Journey and does that singer sound like Steve Perry or what?’ So I inquired into who the singer was and I took a note of that. He sounded like he could slip in with no problem and we would be able to play all our old material plus take it to a new plateau.”

Journey Lineup

The current lineup for Journey is original members Neal Schon (guitar) and Jonathan Cain (keyboards), and Ross Valory (bass), with new members Deen Castronovo (drums) and Steve Augeri on lead vocals. Though they done some work in the recording studio with the new lineup, as of press date there has been no public announcement of a record contract for the band. Schon says that they’re looking forward to performing in the states. “We now call Steve Perry, Mr. P.,” he said. “Our new singer Steve Augeri and Mr. P. both have very similar sounding voices. We just did a handful of dates in Japan with the new lineup and we had a gas! Steve Augeri has worked out just incredible. By the time we hit the stage and he sings the first chorus to the first verse of the song, the audience is coming unglued. We had a great time.”